It was a night of endings, beginnings and a dip in primetime TV usage on Friday. With the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs as competition and a 4% slip among adults 18-49 in overall usage from last week, there was also a bit of some things remaining the same with ABC topping the night among adults 18-49 for the second week in a row. With a 1.3/5 rating and no original dramas on CBS last night, ABC also won Friday in total viewers with 5.950 million tuning in.
Part of the appeal was, of course, Shark Tank (1.5/6, even with last week), was once again the top rated show of Friday night. The 9 PM investment reality show was also the most watched show of last night’s primetime with an audience of 6.46 million.
ABC also saw a double dose of comedy finales on Friday. At 8 PM, Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing (1.1/5) wrapped up its fourth season with a 21% fall from the Season 3 ender of last year. With an 8% drop in demo usage from last week during the 8 – 9 PM hour last night, LSM also dipped 8% from last week.
There were exams, expectations and big choices on the season finale of Cristela (0.9/4) at 8:30 PM last night. Its future may be uncertain but despite the declining usage and lead-in, the freshman comedy was relatively steady with last week with a 10% downturn among the 18-49s. Having said that, the Cristela season ender was fell 30% from the 1.3/5 that its premiere had on October 10 last year. In a slightly less packed slot, that premiere was watched by 6.51 million viewers as opposed to the 4.93 million who tuned in last night. (Here is the letter to fans the show’s creator and star Cristela Alonzo penned on the eve of the finale.)
As some shows were wrapping up for the season, The CW was full of nothing but premieres last night – though their impact was muted.
With a Friday scheduling, expectations were low for new drama The Messengers. Even by those standards, the debut of pre-Apocalypse series from writer/co-EP Eoghan O’Donnell and exec producer Basil Iwanyk was soft, joined by the underwhelming premiere of new unscripted series Cedric’s Barber Battle.
The Cedric the Entertainer-hosted hair-cutting competition opened at 8 PM with 830,000 viewers and a 0.2/1 in adults 18-49. This may be the lowest rated in-season series premiere on the broadcast networks in the demo, down a tenth from the season premiere of Masters of Illusions on Monday this past January (0.3). Following the Season 3 opener of Whose Line Is It Anyway? (0.4/2, down 33% from the Season 2 debut) at 8:30 PM, The Messengers at 9 PM drew 1.18 million and 0.3/1. This marked the lowest rated in-season scripted series premiere on the CW since Cult opened with a 0.3 and 940,000 in February 2013. (Star-Crossed last midseason started with a 0.4), On the bright side for The Messengers, it built onto its lead-in while Cult logged a dropoff (Heart of Dixie, 0.5). The Messengers was lower than recent Friday time slot premieres, including Hart of Dixie (0.4).
Grimm (1.0/4) and a 10 PM Dateline (1.0/4) both slipped 9% from their April 10 shows. CBS’ only original offering of the night was a 2-hour edition of The Amazing Race (1.1/5) that was even with last week’s 1-hour telecast. Fox showed the Cameron Diaz movie Bad Teacher (0.6/2) last night. The 2011 pic pulled in 2.16 million viewers.
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